Episode 1
Episode 1 is the first episode of Season 1 of Kingdom. Synopsis Officials find notices in Hanyang alleging the King of Joseon is dead. Crown prince Lee Chang tries to check on his father, but the young Queen stands in his way. Plot Strange things are happening in the Kingdom of Joseon. Under cover of darkness, physician Lee Seung-hui enters the royal palace to tend to the King. When his assistant Dan-i kneels down to give the King a bowl of medicine, he is attacked and dragged into the bed while Lee looks on in horror. In Hanyang, Royal Army commander Cho Beom-il investigates seditious posters that have appeared around the capital, alleging the King is dead. He has Royal Guard captain Lee Do-jin execute the local guards for failing to stop the posters. Cho orders his soldiers to arrest the perpetrators, and they arrest dozens of young Confucian scholars and take them in for interrogation. Under torture, one scholar denounces the Haewon Cho clan, led by the King's father-in-law, Chief State Councilor Cho Hak-ju. The scholar accuses him of enriching his clan at the expense of the people; Lord Cho replies by accusing the scholar of treason, and for working for the crown prince, Lee Chang. Meanwhile, the crown prince has been kneeling outside the Queen Consort's chambers for days in a bid to see his father, who hasn't been seen for ten days after falling ill with smallpox. However, the Queen rebuffs him, warning the risk of infection is too great. When he refuses to leave, she accuses him of hating her and his unborn sibling before ordering her servants to escort him back to his rooms. When he tries to go to the King's palace anyway, the servants stop him, prompting the prince to accuse them of following Lord Cho's orders above the King himself. Back in his room, Prince Chang summons his guard, Mu-yeong. He asks him to steal the records of his father's treatment from the Royal Infirmary. In the meantime, the crown prince sneaks into his father's quarters, where the servants are frantically searching for the King. While avoiding the guards, he smells a bloody, foul stench and sees a silhouette of a horrible monster. He is caught by Cho Beom-il, who denies that anything unusual is happening. The crown prince pushes past him to the King's door, prompting Cho to draw his sword on the prince. However, the Prince forces his way into the King's bedchamber. Inside, he finds Lord Cho sitting before the King's empty bed. Lord Cho tells him the King has been transferred to the Queen's palace. He accuses the crown prince of plotting to overthrow his father, and warns that he will soon have enough evidence to prove he is behind the scholars' conspiracy. Mu-yeong returns, bringing the royal physician's journal. The prince finds that the entries stop shortly after the beginning of his father's illness, and infers that the physicians were intentionally hiding something. Mu-yeong points out that a physician named Lee Seung-hui was the last person mentioned in the entires. The crown prince recognizes Lee as a former royal physician, but says he retired three years ago to Dongnae in the south. Prince Chang decides to leave the palace in disguise to find Lee, and orders Mu-yeong to accompany him. At Lee's Jiyulheon clinic outside Dongnae, physician Seo-bi is contending with a severe food shortage as she treats her patients. In spite of government promises to send rice, the people are near starving. Seo-bi is relieved when Physician Lee returns, but he is obviously worried. She is shocked when she learns that Dan-i died on the trip, and is disturbed upon seeing the bite marks on his corpse. However, Physician Lee refuses to tell her what happened and locks himself in his room. Back in the capital, Lord Cho meets with the other top government officials to show them a letter with conclusive evidence of the scholars' treason. Chief Scholar Kim Sun is suspicious of the informant who provided the evidence, calling the allegations an insult to the Confucian scholars. Lord Cho blames the weakness of the Confucian scholars of leading the nation to ruin, then slams the Chief Scholar's head into the table and forces him to accept the evidence. He orders the arrest of the crown prince. Cho Beom-il searches the crown prince's quarters, but is told by the servants that the prince has disappeared, and he kills one of them in anger. In the city, the crown prince and Mu-yeong interview an orderly from the Royal Infirmary about the whereabouts of Physician Lee. Park tells them that the physician has already returned to Dongnae after his assistant took ill; he was in a critical condition after suffering deep wounds over his body, as if attacked by a beast. Rather than returning to the royal palace, the crown prince decides to ride south to Dongnae. Mu-yeong tries to discourage him, but the crown prince says that he will be killed if he stays in Hanyang. He admits the accusations of treason are true. As the son of a concubine, he would be dethroned if the Queen gave birth to a legitimate son, so he plotted the coup to save himself. The only way to save himself and his supporters is to find out the truth about his father's condition from Physician Lee. Meanwhile, Lord Cho and Beom-il confirm the crown prince's destination after interrogating the orderly. Lord Cho sends his son at the head of a group of soldiers to apprehend the prince; however, he rejects Beom-il's suggestion to kill Physician Lee, saying he is still useful. At Jiyulheon, Seo-bi returns from gathering herbs to find that one of the patients, Yeong-sin, has cooked up a meat stew for the patients. Yeong-sin tells her that he poached a deer. However, when Seo-bi finds a finger in the soup, she realizes it was made from Dan-i's body. Horrified, she confronts Yeong-sin, who tells her that people often resort to cannibalism in times of famine. As they argue, the patients suddenly begin to take ill, and within a short time everyone who drank the soup has died. However, they resurrect shortly afterwards as night falls, and attack and kill the clinic's staff. Cast * Ju Ji-hoon as Crown Prince Lee Chang * Ryu Seung-ryong as Lord Cho Hak-ju * Bae Doo-na as Seo-bi * Kim Sang-ho as Mu-yeong * Kim Sung-gyu as Yeong-sin * Kim Hye-jun as Queen Cho * Jung Suk-won as Cho Beom-il * Kim Jong-soo as Chief Scholar Kim Sun * Joo Suk-tae as Lee Do-jin * Kwon Bum-taek as Physician Lee Seung-hui Category:Episodes